Despite
many fans' praise for Nancy Holder's BUFFY
and ANGEL novels, I can't really see what
all the fuss is about, and the third BUFFYhardback
novel does nothing to change my opinion.

Yet
again we're in the bizarre world otherwise known as Pocket Books' take
on season three. You know, the one where there's never any sense that
the novels follow on from one another (and given the number that have
been published it would be nice to feel that they did), let alone how
they fit in with the TV series.

For
a series that took time to develop its characters, this puts the novels
at a distinct disadvantage as far as I'm concerned - given what happens
to both Sunnydale and at least one of the characters here, how can the
novels have any more canonicity than the average fanfic?

Anyway,
onto the novel itself, which is subtitled A HISTORIE
OF THE FOUR SLAYERS, although more than four Slayers actually
feature. However, the four that get most of the action are Buffy, her
successors Kendra and Faith and her predecessor India Cohen. Well, sort
of.

Whilst
it's nice to actually see Faith featured for a change, it's a shame that
she had to be reduced to little more than a slut. Additionally, her presence
means that there are even more characters to fit in than usual, with virtually
every character who could appear in a season three popping up here. Coupled
with the numerous flashback scenes, the action feels a little disjointed
as a plot strand is picked up for a while before we move onto another
one.

If
you're a continuity fiend then you'll love spotting all the references,
particularly to previous novels (especially THE GATEKEEPER
TRILOGY and IMMORTAL), although
I found this more irritating than anything else. Given the book series'
overall lack of continuity, either with itself or the television series,
this came across as the usual fannish tendency to throw in a load of references,
most of them to the author's previous novels. This is even more annoying
since basic facts from the TV series, such as the name of Kendra's Watcher
can't be got right (Sam Zabuto according to WHAT'S MY
LINE? PART 2 but Roger Zabuto here).

As
a result of all this, I found THE BOOK OF FOURS
one of the weaker BUFFY novels. On several
occasions, it felt as if the novel was just getting into its stride, but
then it would hit another annoying patch - the uninteresting Ghost Roads,
or the daft idea of a character in ICU with all the Scooby Gang showing
up. Whatever the bonds between them are, wouldn't the person's parents
tell them all just to get lost?

The
two previous BUFFY hardbacks, especially
PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW,
have at least felt a little "special", but THE
BOOK OF FOURS only appears to have been afforded that status
because of the multiple Slayers angle. As a long-time DOCTOR
WHO fan, I'm conditioned to finding stories featuring multiple
incarnations of the title character a little disappointing, and this isn't
really an exception.

Thirteen
quid is certainly on the steep side for this one, and to be honest, I'd
wait for the paperback rather than shelling out that amount of cash. BACK
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